White House: Trump 'united the entire Muslim world in a way that it really hasn't been in many years' on his big trip

A senior White House official
told reporters on Tuesday that President Donald Trump united the
Muslim world in a way that "really hasn't been" done in "many
years."

Trump on Tuesday wrapped up the Middle East leg of his first
foreign trip as president. The trip included stops in Saudi
Arabia and Israel.

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"I think this trip was a big success because it was unexpected,"
the official said. "It went in the heart of one of the, I always
say that the president is always at his best when he's doing big
things that are unexpected. … He was able to really go into Saudi
Arabia, the custodian of the holy mosques, and then Donald Trump
united the entire Muslim world in a way that it really hasn't
been in many years. So it really was very historic in that
regard."

During the stop in Saudi Arabia, Trump delivered a speech to a
group of leaders from dozens of Muslim nations. Trump met with
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas while visiting Israel and the
West Bank.

"The overall objective that we want to accomplish here is really
try to find a peaceful way to create a new direction for the
Middle East," the senior administration official told reporters
Tuesday. "Where it's gone for the last 15 years has not been a
good direction and we have to figure out how we do change that
direction so that we obviously can have less war and more
opportunity people there to live a better life."

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The official said the Saudi Arabia stop was an "amazing coming
together of a lot of people" who are "looking for an opportunity
to follow the lead of what the president wanted to speak about."